The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness

Colin Thompson (author/illustrator)

Random House, Australia: 2008

ISBN: 9781741662573 6+

Genre: picture book

Issues: acceptance, identity

'George lived alone with his grandmother and an empty place where his mother and father should have been. George's mother was a kind lady, but she was very old and the two of them spent most of their lives on different planets.' On his way home from school George visits the animal shelter. One day, in one of the cages he finds a dog that looks as sad as George feels.

Can George convince his grandmother to allow him to adopt such a dog? Can anybody, human or animal, really fill the enormous emptiness inside George?

Colin Thompson is a remarkable writer. He has an uncanny ability to write very readable, simple narratives that, with or without his involvement, carry subtexts that address universal themes. A somewhat sad story about a sad boy and a sad dog with only three legs somehow evolves into a story that celebrates relationships and recognises that while food and shelter are important, what really matters in life is to love and be loved.

'In the next few weeks Jeremy learnt a whole new vocabulary, full of words like 'cushion' and 'dinner' and 'cuddle'. George's world was filled with words he had heard but never experienced before like 'warmth' and 'not being on your own'.'

Thompson's illustrative style is unique. His work has always had a slightly gritty edge but since moving to drawing on computer, he's refined this even further. The darker look, while simpler than his early, complex illustrations, works on a different level. In The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness the simplicity helps underline George's isolation, his sense of existing in if not a vacuum, then a very empty, rather bleak world. Once Jeremy enters his life, George's world is increasingly filled with detail and colour. Thompson is one of the great author/illustrators because he ensures that the pictures carry the reader well beyond the text, providing narrative and character information that isn't available in the writing. It is only through the images in this book, for example, that readers learn that the dog gives George and his grandmother a common interest, a point of contact and a shared goal.

Sensitive, funny, sad and optimistic, The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness reminds readers that it is too easy for precious things – like three-legged dogs and lonely children – to fade into the background and be lost forever; but it is also possible to bring about significant positive change by taking risks.

A story to be shared.

See also: Sometimes Love is Under Your Foot; The Violin Man